What we do
Helping street children to be safer, better
supported and valued by their communities
StreetInvest is an expert in a specialist form of youth work with street-connected children, called Street Work
Street Work can be the first step to positive change in a street-connected child’s life. Street Work increases their safety, strengthens their sense of belonging in their communities, and helps them access vital services, like food, shelter, and education
Everything StreetInvest does either supports or promotes Street Work. Find out how we do this through:
Building and strengthening partner organisations
Supporting best practice Street Work
StreetInvest supports organisations that are working directly with street-connected children, through its programme of Street Work training and organisational development.
Through this programme, StreetInvest aims to make organisations more effective, sustainable and able to make an even bigger impact in the lives of the children they support.
Delivery model
StreetInvest used to deliver its capacity building programme directly to partner organisations. Since 2017, StreetInvest has developed a new strategy to enable it to scale, and grow its reach.
The new model acknowledges that work with street-connected young people should be led by experts in the local context. The programme is now delivered through three key partner organisations in StreetInvest’s Global Alliance for Street Work: CINI in Kolkata, India; Glad’s House in Mombasa, Kenya; and MFCS in Kumasi, Ghana, with the support of StreetInvest.
Building and strengthening partner organisations
StreetInvest’s methodology
StreetInvest’s Observational Headcount methodology was recognised as a sector standard by the Consortium for Street Children in 2015.
Since it was developed, StreetInvest has been directly involved in headcounts in India, Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia (commissioned by UNICEF), Tanzania and two nationwide headcounts in Sierra Leone. The first of these in 2011 was the first-ever national headcount of street-connected children.
Detailed statistics have been collected on over 100,000 street-connected children and young people, and over 250 practitioners have received StreetInvest’s headcount training.
For more detailed information about the methodology and headcount training and support packages available from StreetInvest, please contact Director of Programmes Siân Wynne, at sian.wynne@streetinvest.org
Other data collection tools
StreetInvest has developed other specialist data collection tools to support Street Work practice. These include Street Work Monitoring and Evaluation tools; Community Attitude Surveys, and Risks Assessments. Get in touch to learn more: info@streetinvest.org
Promoting a rights-based approach for street-connected children
Street-connected children can face multiple rights violations on a daily basis. StreetInvest promotes Street Work as a rights-based approach to working with street-connected children and recognises them as rights-holders.
As well as supporting organisations working directly with street-connected children to conduct Street Work, StreetInvest advocates for street-connected children’s rights in order to drive systemic change. StreetInvest has lobbied for street-connected children’s rights at the United Nations and continues to support its partners to advocate at a national government level.
With the University of Dundee
Growing up on the Streets is an award-winning research project which was commissioned by our late founder, Patrick Shanahan and is directly managed by the University of Dundee. The project has trained street youth as research assistants and through them, tracked the life trajectories of over 200 children on the streets of three Africa cities, over three years.
Royal Holloway University
We have been working in partnership with Royal Holloway University of London’s Department of Geography since 2012. We have hosted Masters and Undergrad dissertation students and collaborated on PhD research.
“‘Responsibility, work and transition on the street. A grounded theory study of street-involved children and young people in Northern Tanzania“
Gemma Pearson investigated the social and relational aspects of the lives of street-connected children in northern Tanzania for her PhD at Royal Holloway University. Working in partnership with StreetInvest, her research explored concepts of intergenerational contracts, reciprocity and responsibility, child rights, children’s agency and destructive agency.